What’s On

An opportunity to have some time and space for yourself and to prepare, recoup your energy and maximise your time at the Fringe meeting and working with other artists. Workshop leaders will include Gabriel Gawin, Niamh Dowling, Magda Koza, Company of Wolves, Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas and others.

BRUSH Theatre, last seen at Summerhall with The Overcoat, are back with another vivid and inventive show for younger audiences. A lonely boy Woogie and his troublemaking pet turtle Boogie experience their first sea adventure. What will happen to them in this beautiful but scary new watery world, and will they return home safely?

What happens when memories disappear? Where do they go, and can we get them back? Using just his voice and a Roland TD-4KP electronic drumkit, Antosh Wojcik explores the effects of inherited Alzheimer's on speech, memory and family. Poems become beats become glitches in time in a mesmeric display of live drumming and spoken word.

North Pole, 4 am. Under a snowstorm powerful enough to wrestle with a sequoia, a used-up van finds its way across the icecap. Three reporters land on the ice as if stepping on the moon for the first time. A bear stares straight at them. The team gets ready...

In Fallen Fruit, as the Berlin Wall splits open in 1989, a girl looks forward to life beyond communism, a couple unravels, and 80s TV permeates everything. In 2019, Britain leaves the EU while Europe celebrates 30 years since the end of the Cold War.

All performances are captioned. Please contact the Fringe access office on accessbookings@edfringe.com to book a captioning unit.

Join Jelly and Jonjo on their quest to discover the truth in a rip-roaring adventure through space full of friendship, fun and flying saucers. Contains: one confused alien, two brave kids and a busted spaceship. For space cadets age five and up.

The makers of BigMouth return with a thrilling, relevant new show, delving deeply into the politician’s life and exposing those juicy backstage scenes we all look for and asking why anyone seeks recognition in a job that is known to be the most unpopular ever.

The show that rocked Canada, sparking a thousand conversations with its head-on confrontation of toxic masculinity. Adam Lazarus plays The Father and he's done bad things in his life. Taking you through his struggles with love, lust and violence, he presents himself as a figure for our amusement, dismay, and judgement

After a sell-out run at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, nostalgic bookseller Lewis and party-boy Glen are back in this hit gay romantic comedy set in 1980s Edinburgh. Love Song to Lavender Menace is a funny, celebratory play about the radical, lesbian, gay and feminist bookshop which began in the cloakroom of Scotland’s first gay nightclub and became the beating heart of Edinburgh’s LGBT+ community.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to direct your attention to the on-board safety demonstration and ask that you give us your full attention. In the unlikely event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure alternative scenarios will be provided.
Flight is presented by Darkfield, the creators of 2017 Edinburgh Festival hit, Séance. It takes place in a shipping container in absolute darkness.

Performer:Maker was originally produced to consider the fetishisation of the artist as a labourer; overworked and underpaid. The piece will exist both as performance and sculpture. It is a physical artwork activated by performance, and lives on even once the performance has ended.

Nothing's easier than returning to the welcoming arms of civilian life post-Army, right? Not for this soldier. Through theatre and VR headsets you will see post-Army life from the perspective of an Iraq War veteran returning home.

The only two children born in a North Yorkshire village for a generation cannot imagine ever being apart, but as their lives shift, so too do the ties that bind them. Charley Miles’ outstanding debut play Blackthorn explores the changes and choices that pull us from the places and people we love.

Captioned performance on 16 Aug. Please contact the Fringe access office on accessbookings@edfringe.com to book a captioning unit.

Written in response to conversations with survivors of domestic violence and abuse, Never Vera Blue is a disorientating story of one woman’s journey to recover who she is. From the city to the Kent coast, from a war-torn land to the pit of the stomach, Alexandra Wood’s new play explores just what it means to be made to doubt yourself and how to regain a sense of identity.

“The children grabbed him (the father) and put him on the table. And he became the food. They took him apart, dismembered him. Ate him up. And so he was liquidated... the same way he liquidated his children.”
Louise Bourgeois, The Destruction of The Father (1974)

Take a gin jolly with Pickering's Gin in their home at Summerhall Distillery. With a G&T in hand, discover how the former kennels of the Royal (Dick) Vet School came to be Edinburgh's first exclusive gin distillery in 150 years and Visit Scotland's best visitor attraction in Edinburgh.

Duckie is a reimagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling with a message of tolerance and self acceptance at its core. Family-friendly glamour and glitz takes centre stage as critically acclaimed cabaret star Le Gateau Chocolat breaks out of his shell in his first work for children, a classic tale of identity and belonging.

Inspired by our collective nightmare of being chased and the manifestation of this in film culture and real-life experience, three women enact various chase scenes at a break-neck pace. In combination with video cameras displaying live-feed projections, a collection of props and costumes, the spectacle is both live and on screen.

All performances captioned. Please contact the Fringe access office on accessbookings@edfringe.com to book a captioning unit.

In an age when technology multiplies every mistake, can we find a way to understand each other? A razor-sharp satire about the search for a sure footing in an uncertain world from BAFTA-nominated Vinay Patel.

The story of a young woman soldier's journey through post-traumatic stress. Following training, Joanna is deployed to Afghanistan and believes she is prepared for what lies ahead. What she is not prepared for is a visit from her past.

Love Letters from Blackpool, a comedy theatre piece about love and Blackpool, originally commissioned by The Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester and subsequently nominated for Best New Show at Leicester Comedy Festival and Best Comedy Show at Greater Manchester Fringe, uses found love letters, original songs, poetry and audience interaction to answer the questions... What is love?

Big Aftermath explores how lives can turn on a word and the allure of the self-destruct button. Comedy and tragedy collide in a play about what happens when one person wants to go and the other wants them to stay.

Captioned performance on 17 Aug. Please contact the Fringe access office on accessbookings@edfringe.com to book a captioning unit.

A modern telling of an ancient myth, woven from hair-raising spoken word and soaring soul music. A tale of side streets, dive bars and ancient gods. A story of death defying love from the creators of Fable and Beulah. Winner of the VAULT Festival Summerhall Award and Adelaide Fringe Best Theatre Award.

People Show are the UK’s oldest experimental theatre collective. Defying definition and constantly pushing the boundaries of live performance, the company continues to explore the world around us. Each show has been numbered. This is People Show 130.

Winner of the Best International Performance Award at the 2017 Amsterdam Fringe and hit of the 2018 Brighton Fringe. Performer and playwright Bastiaan Vandendriessche’s gripping new play invites his audience to step into a darkly woven and deceptive story about his time as a leader of the Seascouts in Ghent six years ago.

Trojan Horse was a local story that hit the national press, accusing ‘hardline’ Muslim teachers and governors of plotting extremism in Birmingham schools. Adapted from the real-life testimonies of those at the heart of the UK Government's inquiry, critically acclaimed theatre-company LUNG investigate what really happened.

The Scottish and Fijian wives of Commonwealth soldier, who have served in the British Army, share stories of war from their perspective. Based on real-life interviews, the wives voices are formidable and brutally honest. They deserve to be heard

A Generous Lover is the true, and very queer tale, of one soul’s journey through the wasteland of mental illness, to deliver their lost love. Brimming with psychedelic proletarian prose, and trenchant wit, it recounts the pandemonium of navigating mental health services on behalf of a loved one, whilst being transfeminine, and occasionally mistaken for a patient.

Gerling walked 4,000km in 15 years, photographing those he met along the way. He compiles these portraits into flipbooks which capture magical everyday encounters. Gerling returns to Edinburgh with his Total Theatre Award winning show, featuring old favourites and new faces: a gentle meeting of cinema, photography and story.

Huff is the wrenching yet darkly comic tale of Indigenous brothers caught in a torrent of solvent abuse and struggling with the death of their mother. Their dream world bleeds into reality, as they’re preyed on by The Trickster through hallways at school, the abandoned motel he loves more than home and his own fragile psyche.

Paris. 1650ish. Impotence is illegal. When a member of the aristocracy is accused of being less than upstanding, his wounded pride leads him towards a monumental and very public flop. But can a cast of total idiots save a show about a flop... from being one?

The BBC is creating an intimate live pop up radio studio at Summerhall. Eight fresh audio plays from leading writers are being recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3. PLAYS: 8th - Of a Lifetime, by Lulu Raczka / 9th - Death of a Matriarch, by Tanika Gupta / 11th - 1962, by Peter Flannery / 14th - The Reality Tunnel, by Karen Laws / 16th - Sam's Secret Orchestra, by Jeremy Raison / 18th - After Fear, by Oliver Emanuel / 21st - The Blackwood, by Jacob Polley / 23rd - Three Letters, written & performed by Nell Leyshon / 25th - Turbulence, by Eileen Horne.

Witness the rise and fall of a new(t) capitalism. Deep in Summerhall’s basement, an ocean of opportunity arises as a new resource makes contact. Global risk and technological revolution come together in this immersive experience from internationally award-winning Knaive Theatre with surround sound installation by sonic artist Robert Bentall.

'A striking dream world... one of the most ambitious pieces we have ever presented' (Anna Woo, The Getty Villa). California’s marijuana country: the still-Wild West. Annie conducts a forensic exploration of 'the facts' about her outlaw weed farmer brother as this genre-bending work slips into disputed territory: childhood memories.

In Finnish tradition, the sauna is a solemn place; a scene of cleansing, contemplation, birth and death. According to myth every sauna had its own spirit, whom visitors should care for and respect. The Sauna is a speechless mask and object theatre performance accompanied with live sound effects and original music.

The night of the Manchester uprising. That night should change everything. Drawing on his own personal experience, Ed Edwards’ script crackles with anger, humour and authenticity as he chronicles the fallout for communities crushed by the heroin epidemic at the height of Thatcherism.

After a long military career, life back on civvy street should be a breeze... right? Tommy’s observations on the absurdities of the everyday are “comic and convincing” (InDaily) and “fabulously witty” (TheClothesline.com.au).

My best friends, Sarah and Emma, asked me for my sperm. This is the tale of what happened after I gave it to them. A storytelling show about love, faith and trying to do the right thing. Made with Daniel Goldman and set in the same universe as Team Viking and A Hundred Different Words for Love.

The team behind last year's five-star double-bill, Love+ and BlackCatfishMusketeer, is back. This one's for anyone who wants to be tickled, provoked, or has a brain and has ever worried about what it's not telling them.

Triple Fringe First and Olivier Award-winning Fishamble’s Maz and Bricks tells the story of two young people who meet over the course of a day in Dublin. Maz is attending a ‘Repeal the 8th’ demonstration, while Bricks is going to meet the mother of his young daughter.

Isabelle summons her family back to their ancestral home in Québec. Despite their history, they come. Her right-wing brother Harry, daughter Mina, and Catherine, the rebellious baby of the family, who has her new Scottish boyfriend in tow. Then there's François, her adoptive son, and her long lost friend from her radical youth. It’s time to talk about the future. But who does the future belong to?

The Last One is brutal physical theatre created by Gema Galiana and Anthony Nikolchev. Evoked by the song of the last Kauai O’o bird, waiting for a response that will never come to its call for a mate.

Cock, Cock… Who’s There is confrontational, unrestrainedly funny, deeply touching and formally simply virtuoso. Elagoz explores desire, the power of femininity and the male gaze in a world in which the virtual and the real are inextricably intertwined.

Being a small-time drug dealer in Cardiff is tough. Marc avoids his mum, disguises his cannabis plants with fake tomatoes at the allotment, and now has to bail his old man out of £6,000 owed to local loan shark Oggy.

PUSSY RIOT need little introduction, the Russian protest art collective have one of the most important voices of the last 10 years whose lyrical themes include feminism, LGBT rights, and opposition to Vladimir Putin.

A dancer dances, while another explains. A quirky performance-lecture about the problems of dance and meaning, referencing iconic figures in contemporary dance such as Yvonne Rainer, Tatsumi Hijikata and Jérȏme Bel, and getting tangled in non-dance, Butoh and somatic practice.

The boiler's broken, the owl with the rings is missing, the celebrant's late and the band haven't turned up. Can Mona and Geoff still tie the knot and live happily ever after? This is a wedding you won't forget. An unmissable evening of ink-black comedy and brilliant performances.

Inspired by the reality of a multicultural neighbourhood in Glasgow, Closed Doors refuses to recognise genre boundaries as it tackles questions of identity, heritage, community and isolation with rigour and heart.

With every choice we create a new universe. I make it, I don’t make it, I make it, I don’t. Two musician-performers take us on a fantastical journey that links four characters in interconnecting stories across the Multiverse.

Made in the UK and Georgia, Ur Medëa confronts our world of infinite choices, and moral relativism, with the consequences of remote clandestine wars and the distant awakening of a brutality that finds its way home back into our dreams of family.

Status is a show about someone who doesn't want his anymore. About running away from the national story you're given. About who is responsible for that story and what might happen to it if you try to give it up.

Springing from globe-spanning conversations about nationality, Status is a journey of attempted escape – with songs.

It’s me running for an hour. That’s it. I’m just, running. Down the street, or maybe in the park…Look the route isn’t set yet, but I’ll be running the whole time and I'll, like, do my best y'know? But I’ll also just be myself, but like, faster than usual. I will be taking questions and although I fell over last time, I can’t promise that kind of gripping drama this season”

Max is a normal-ish kid in a normal-ish town. He spends his days daydreaming and hanging out with his weird wee pal Stevie Nimmo. But when Max is called for his first Square Go, a fight by the school gates, it’s his own demons he must wrestle with first.

A group of Edinburgh residents, carers and health professionals examine their experiences of seeking and giving care in the NHS. Grassmarket Projects return to Summerhall after the successes of Doubting Thomas and Doglife with another politically charged true life drama directed by six time Fringe First winner Jeremy Weller.

A gripping story of love and loss set during World War One, blending dance, original music and archive film. Moving from rural Punjab to the Belgian trenches where young Indian men have been brought to fight for the Allies, we learn about the secret promise made by one soldier, Lehna Singh, as he makes the ultimate sacrifice to save another.

Told through spoken word and within timed boxing rounds, Until You Hear That Bell is a story about ten years of amateur boxing and a changing relationship between father and son. Sean Mahoney is a spoken word writer and performer; this is his first solo show.

Named stand-out cabaret of the year by the NZ Herald, Valerie is an inter-generational, interdisciplinary and interrupting piece of theatre reaching into the guts of family mythologies. Music, genetics, and storytelling combine to unravel one family's history. A love letter from grandson to grandmother, this celebration of resilience is gig-theatre at its finest.

Drive-by Shooting is a video and sound installation that blends opera, street art and animation. It appears as a stencil style animation on city walls with sound transmitted to wireless headphones. Created by John McIlduff and Brian Irvine. Featuring Doreen Curran, Sylvia O'Brien and the RTE Concert Orchestra.

Step into this unassuming Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where twisted storytelling and spectacular circus skills are shaken and stirred, with one part dark comedy, one part serenity and three parts hostility, hilarity and honesty.

A Belgian popstar moves to London to steal the job of British popstars. Luckily, austerity is there to stop her. A witty pop-opera about a girl called Nele who turns her life into a big international mess because she wants to be famous on the other side of the English Channel.

Multi award-winning venue CanadaHub returns to the Fringe with a new late-night show. Guest hosts introduce the best of Canadian cabaret, comedy and music from across the festival. All acts guaranteed to have been to Canada at least once.

Rhythm Machine is a night of dance music and performance art. Each week DJs Yves, William Francis + special guests play dance music from around the world - rooted in the international new wave scene - as guest artists create new work for the space; approaching it as if creating for a gallery while utilising and responding to the unique context of the nightclub space.